Antonio Vallisneri and the Antiquities

Statue of Athena

Author:
Manner of Chairestratos (sculptor, active between the second half of the 4th B.C. and the early 3rd century B.C.)

Cultural context:
Greece / Attica

Date:
second half of the 4th B.C.

Description

Standing female statue dressed in the classic Greek manner with chiton and himation. The goddess Athena can easily be recognized in this figure because of the presence of some typical details such as the aegida (goat skin) with snakes and the gorgoneion on her chest (the head of a gorgone, a mythological figure). A shield and a spear, which she could have hold, are missing because the arms of the statue got lost. However, scholars suggested this could be an Athena Ergane, holding in her hands peaceful items and not weapons, given the position of the remaining arms. Epigraphical documents demonstrate that Athena Ergane was worshipped on the Athenian Acropolis. About authorship and dating: scholars suggest that it may be an attic work of the second half of the 4th century B.C. represented at the manner of the sculptor Chairestratos, author of the great statue of Themis from Ramnuntes.